USC Women Lean On Seniors to Beat UCLA

Sunday’s UCLA-USC game was more than a crosstown rivalry and the Pacific 10 Conference opener for both. With teams this young -- a combined seven seniors out of 28 roster players -- it appeared as if it would be a look into the future.

But it was two Trojan seniors, Jessica Cheeks and Ebony Hoffman who made sure USC came away with a 64-51 victory over the Bruins, before 2,106 at the Sports Arena.

“It’s so hard to open [conference play] against your archrival,” said USC Coach Chris Gobrecht. “But coming off the holiday break ... at times it looked like we couldn’t believe we were playing each other.”

Cheeks and Hoffman each had 17 points for the Trojans (4-5) but provided different levels of inspiration. Cheeks, who sat out the last 10 games of the season and was not eligible until Dec. 19 while serving a suspension because of academic trouble, made her first start since last Feb. 1 against Washington State. She scored the Trojans’ first seven points, was six for 11 overall and made two important three-point shots to blunt late Bruin rallies.

“I didn’t get to play last year and I really wanted to,” Cheeks said. “So I was going out there and giving it all I had.”

It was tougher for Hoffman to come by her points. She made only five of 14 shots, but pulled down a game-high 11 rebounds, made critical free throws down the stretch and kept the younger Trojans from imploding under UCLA’s defensive pressure late in the game.

After the game, Hoffman had plenty of praise for Cheeks.

“I have really missed her,” Hoffman said. “I know stuff isn’t going to go wrong when she’s around. I know I can depend on her to make smart decisions. If we’d had her in some of those close games we lost, we would have won.”

The combination proved too much for UCLA (4-5), especially with the Trojans determined on defense to keep Bruin guards Nikki Blue and Noelle Quinn from hurting them. Blue had 14 points, and Quinn -- playing for the first time after sitting out three games because of a stress fracture in the right foot -- had nine points and 10 rebounds. The two combined for six-for-20 shooting and had to earn everything they got Sunday.

“It was hard to find a rhythm today,” Blue said. “I don’t know what the problem is, it was just hard.”

Both teams looked raggedy at times, the Bruins more so than the Trojans.

It looked as if UCLA was lucky its deficit was only 31-20 at halftime. In the first half, the Bruins were battered on the boards (25-18), made 13 of their 24 turnovers and because the game plan was to beat USC down the court whenever possible and take the first open shot available, UCLA’s offense was hit and miss -- mainly miss (eight for 26, 30.8% in the first half, 32.1% for the game).

“I thought we got a little anxious, but that’s kinda our game,” UCLA Coach Kathy Olivier said. “We want to get down the floor and get quick shots. We like to get transition baskets and we had some good looks; we just weren’t hitting.”

The Bruins, who shot 32.1% for the game, deepened their first-half hole by going scoreless for 5:13 near the end of the half, as USC scored 10 consecutive points.

But Hoffman said she wasn’t lulled into any sense of complacency, considering the Trojans had gotten large first-half leads on Connecticut and Colorado, and had wound up losing both games.

“[Holding leads] has been our problem all year long,” Hoffman said. “We told ourselves we weren’t giving up this lead today.”

The Bruins did come close. In the second half, they got within with one point, at 41-40, on Blue’s layup with 8:21 left to play. With 5:38 remaining, UCLA was down, 50-46, before Hoffman sank a three-pointer.

Cheeks followed with another three-point field goal 90 seconds later, and USC pulled out of danger at 56-46.